by PunditGuy | Apr 16, 2012 | Travel |
For the first time in 8 years, I’m not at the London Book Fair. While it is strange not walking the aisles at Earl’s Court, it is also a relief. At this point, I just can’t do another LBF, or any book publishing convention. There are a few things I’m just flat out tired of experiencing.
- Companies that don’t know how to exhibit. There is nothing more annoying that walking up to a booth (or “stand” as they like to call them in Europe) and not being noticed. You feign interest as you browse the books they have on the shelf, waiting for someone, one of them, to come over and ask if you have questions or if you are there to see anyone. Nope. Standard procedure is to pretend you are not there.
- Guards at the “Big” publishing companies. You know them. They are the publishing house employees whose job it is to filter you from publishing executives. No way are you going to just walk up to a booth and meet with someone. Nope, you have to face the person whose job it is to keep the riff raff away as they look at you and say, “do you have an appointment?”. When you say you don’t, but that you were hoping to just speak with someone for 15 minutes about what you’ve traveled thousands of miles to communicate, they look at you like you’ve just thrown up in public. They glance at the (ahem) paper diary book in front of them flipping the pages furiously while sighing and mentioning that everyone is completely booked up. Meanwhile, you can see that the person you want to talk to is just shootin’ the breeze with their fellow employees a few feet from where you stand.
- The high cost of convention food/drink. You’ve got 10 minutes between appointments, and your mouth feels like the Sahara Desert. There’s no time to run outside to find a corner store. You have to go to one of the approved food vendors on the show floor where you find that the 8 ounce box of water you so desire is 4 Pounds British Sterling (almost $8 US). No choice. You do it, and regret every gulp.
- Aisle walkers who are oblivious to anyone else around them. These are the people who are walking the hall with the luggage on wheels. They’re walking right down the middle of the aisle about 3 steps slower than anyone else. You always find these people just when you are 5 minutes late to your appointment, and they just won’t get out of your way. So, you walk behind them, going just as slow as they do, waiting for an opportunity to pass to their left or right so you can get to your meeting. If you’re lucky, you’ll encounter no less than 5 of these people on your way.
- No shows. You’ve spent weeks making appointments. A flurry of emails have confirmed every last detail. Date, time, booth number, and contact person. You show up, not only on time, but a couple of minutes early, and all you find is an empty booth. No one is there. Oh, they’ve been there alright. You can see that morning’s used coffee cup. Business cards from the meetings they bothered to show up to. Maybe even an appointment book with your appointment etched so neatly inside. But your contact is a no show, and you’ve just wasted 30 minutes, not to mention all the money it took to get you there.
- The permanently distracted. These are the folks who you’ve come to meet, but they aren’t interested in what you are saying, or anything else about you. They’re watching everyone else pass by. They waive at their friends that stroll past the booth. They do their “shout outs” to old colleagues. They stop you in mind sentence and say, “oh, sorry, just a moment” and they dash over to slap a guy on the back and let out a big guffaw about something completely uninteresting. 2 minutes, and they run back to you apologizing. Meanwhile, you are in mid-product pitch, and they’ve heard nothing of it.
I could go on and on.
So, instead of sitting in an over-priced hotel with bad Wi-Fi right now, I’m at home, enjoying the fact that I’m no where near Earl’s Court.
Farewell London Book Fair.
And yes, I’m taking appointments for Frankfurt. 
by PunditGuy | Apr 21, 2009 | Travel |
Day number one of the London Book Fair is complete. Even though the business climate is difficult for most publishers, the show floor was busy and one could almost sense a bit of optimism amongst the exhibitors. Attendee traffic was brisk for most of the day and I didn’t notice many empty stall spaces. The aisles seem a bit wider than in years past, and that is usually an indication of fewer exhibiting publishers. All in all though, it was hardly noticeable.
Like last year, everyone is talking about digital this and digital that. This year a “Digital Zone” is set up in hall 2. The zone is actually a pad of 8 stands melded together to make an island of small kiosk’s and a theater for product and service demonstrations. I sat in on a couple of the demos, and for the most part they were informative. One must remember though that this is a publishing show, and as such, those who demonstrate need to know their audience. The term “.epub” was thrown around with abandon, and it could have easily been misunderstood by the majority. The XML standard is being heavily pushed by most everyone, so much so that the term is freely used both as a noun and as a verb.
Of the things publishers are struggling with, monetization is tops. While everyone agrees that digital is no longer a futuristic dream, it is a reality of the day, the debate over pricing and channel ownership has just begun. There is still so much for a publisher to learn. Most acknowledged that the key to addressing digital today is the length at which a publishing house is willing to take risks. Experimentation is key, yet in these difficult economic times, it isn’t easy for anyone to play with capital.
The complex discussions are being tempered by the extraordinarily nice spring weather here in the UK. If things get too stuffy inside, one only needs to walk a few hundred feet to bask in the warm 70 degree sunshine.
by PunditGuy | Apr 18, 2009 | Travel |
I’m in London for the book fair, which officially starts on Monday. I’m looking forward to attending a digital seminar tomorrow. It will give me something additional to do on Sunday, which is traditionally my “get acclimated to the time zone” day. This year I brought along my Dell Mini 9 instead of the full fledged Thinkpad. So far, I’m mostly concerned with getting on the the net, and that’s what these things are best at. If I have to remote in to my work machine, that’s when the rubber will meet the road. We’ll see how well the Mini does. If things get interesting at the seminar tomorrow, I’ll blog about it here. I’ll be twittering as well, so if you want, you can follow me.
MORE: Well, I would have blogged about the seminar I attended today, and I probably would have twitter’d a bit too IF THERE WAS WIFI! That’s right, there was no internet in the room. A conference about digital books, digital publishing models and all sort of other digital talk, but with no internet available to the attendees. In fact, Neelan Choksi, COO of Lexcycle (the folks who make Stanza) commented that this was the first conference he spoke at where he wouldn’t be able to get on Twitter and see what the crowd said about his presentation. In 2009, not having an internet connection during a conference like this is unheard of. A major mis-step by the organizers. Other than that, the room was packed with jetlagged people who probably would have rather been outside in the London sunshine than inside a poorly lit room on a Sunday afternoon. While some of the speakers made good points, all in all, it was not a very memorable event.
by PunditGuy | Apr 13, 2009 | Travel |
I’m heading to London on Friday for my annual trek to the London Book Fair. Besides the normal business meeting schedule, I’ve got plans to attend the following seminars:
- Strategies for digital publishing in a time of uncertainty (4/19 – Cromwell Room)
- Getting the best out of your digital deal: Commercial and legal issues (4/20 – Thames Room)
- Introducing the dedicated digital reading device to the UK consumer (4/20 – Cromwell Room)
- “Where’s the Money” Digital Keynote (4/21 – Cromwell Room)
I’m also looking forward to watching demos from LibreDigital and Code Mantra.
LBF is a more managable event than, say, the monster Frankfurt Book Fair. Rather than being spread across 8 buildings, LBF fits comfortably inside Earl’s Court. This years fair runs from 4/20 through 4/22.
by PunditGuy | Feb 10, 2009 | Travel |
OK, so I didn’t exactly make it to New York City last Friday night. The reason? An emergency trip to the ER for yours truly. Yep, that was me, riding in the back of the ambulance and into the hospital. Seems that out of no where my heart started racing at not normal speeds. I didn’t have any other characteristics of a heart attack. I just had this racing heart thingy. So, rather than take chances, we dialed 911. I spent 4 hours in the ER to find out that nothing looked wrong with me, other than my heart going too fast. They administered some drugs and my rate came right on down.
I did a treadmill test and a echocardiogram yesterday just for good measure. Looks like a ongoing prescription for a beta blocker is in my imediate future. Of course, we’ll see what the doc says.
So, that’s why I didn’t make it to NYC, or to the O’Reilly event. I’m bummed to say the least, but whatcha gonna do? Health comes first, right?
UPDATE: It appears that my heart is completely healthly and that I still have work to do on this planet. The results of my test have come back normal. 🙂
by PunditGuy | Apr 10, 2008 | Travel |
Like many in our industry, I’m heading to London for the book fair which starts on Monday, April 14th. I’m looking forward to the show this year. Last year, digitization was the topic du-jour. That conversation carried over to the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany. So, I expect to field more questions on this issue from my publisher partners when we meet next week.
I’ll let you know if I see a giant Kindle helium balloon floating from the rafters of Earl’s Court 1. Pictures will follow.
Technorati Tags:
Publishing, London Book Fair, Frankfurt Book Fair, Earl’s Court, London, Books, Exhibition
Kindle
by PunditGuy | Mar 3, 2008 | Travel |
I’ve been in planes when they have to ditch a landing. It’s disconcerting to say the least. You’re prepared for the wheels to touch the ground when all of a sudden, the jet engines crank up to full throttle as you head straight back up into the air. Not fun.
On Saturday, a Lufthansa flight carrying 131 passengers tried to land in Germany when the pilot encountered crosswinds 150 mph.
(more…)
by PunditGuy | Feb 9, 2008 | Travel |
2/09/08 – 9:57 PM – outside the window of my hotel.
by PunditGuy | Apr 19, 2007 | Travel |
I closed the book fair today with another half dozen appointments. The floor was noticeably quieter being it was the last day of the event. The weather has stayed almost perfect the entire time, so I imagine a lot of folks decided to get out and enjoy it.
I’m on a plane late Thursday heading back to the states. Goodbye London (for another year).
by PunditGuy | Apr 18, 2007 | Travel |
I spent all day at Earl’s Court One Tuesday, with meetings from 9 AM til 5:30 PM.
Whenever I go to shows like this, I’m always amazed by the amount of books published. More than that, I’m blown away by the variety of subject matter. During my ‘in between meetings’ moments, as I was walking down the aisles, I’d think up the most bazaar book subject I could and then wait to see how long it would take before I saw a published version. Invariably, I’d see one or something very close to it. I don’t know what’s more strange – my book ideas or the fact that there are actual markets for these things.
